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Dean Winchester was utterly pathetic. In his personal opinion, at least. You see, he had this friend, Castiel Novak – his best friend – who was the smartest, kindest, most attractive person on the face of the earth and well, of course Dean had gone and fallen madly in love with him. He dreamed about him day and night, doodled his name in his notebooks, imagined the texture of his tongue against - anyway.
There was a whole boatload of problems with all this, if you asked Dean, but number one on that list was the fact that he had decided to drop a freaking letter into Cas' locker to confess his feelings.
The two boys had been inseparable since the third grade when Cas had graciously given Dean his slice of pecan pie when the younger boy had forgotten his lunch. In return, Dean had brought his classmate a homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for the rest of the year.
The wish to let Cas know of his feelings had been growing steadily in Dean as graduation approached. Both boys were set to start college at KU in the fall, they would even be sharing a room at the dorms on campus. At first, Dean had been elated but he had soon realized that the thought of being so close to the one he wanted and having to hide how he felt all the time was unbearable. Plus, the Winchester boy wanted to give Cas a chance to request a different roommate, if he no longer wanted to share with him under the circumstances. Even if it would break his heart.
So instead of talking to Cas, like any normal person would, he had spent night after night pouring over his notepad, writing and rewriting and rewriting a letter to the boy he was utterly head over heels for, addressing every one of wishes, fears, and insecurities.
School would let out for the seniors the next day, so Dean had figured it was his last chance to slide the thick envelope containing all the words so close to his heart through the slits of his best friend's locker. This way, at least, he wouldn't have to see Cas laugh in his face.
'But the problem with not having to see Cas' immediate reaction,' Dean thought as he waited for his friend at the entrance of the cafeteria, nervously shifting from one foot to another, 'is that I can't see Cas' immediate reaction.'
As the other boy finally rounded the corner Dean had to force himself not to run screaming but Cas showed no sign of distress, or confusion, or anything else out of the ordinary. He simply greeted his friend with a warm "Hello, Dean" before leading the way down the hallway to the school parking lot. Stunned, Dean hurried to match his stride.
He glanced over at Cas, allowing his gaze to linger on the boy's high cheekbones, the impossibly endearing small curls of dark hair behind his ear and the inviting pink of his lips. The latter were pulled up into a soft smile, the one Cas only reserved for Dean. That seemed like a good sign, right? If Cas was still smiling for him like that he surely couldn't be angry? Or maybe Cas hadn't found the letter at all?
"So, um, I see you got your coat from your locker!" Dean gestured at the tan trench coat slung over Castiel's arm in a fruitless attempt to appear casual. "Anything else interesting you spotted in there?"
Cas frowned.
"I've been carrying my coat all day, Dean, you know we were supposed to have our lockers cleaned out by this morning."
All the color drained from Dean's face in an instant: “What did you just say?”
“Locker clean-outs,” Castiel repeated, turning back to his friend who had stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, “these happen every year, you should have learned that by now.”
“No. No, no, no, those are next week.”
“For the underclassmen, yes, they checked them in fourth period for the seniors."
"But that's not possible!"
Cas raised an eyebrow at Dean's obvious distress. “Did you leave your favorite picture of the Impala in your locker again? Because you know they just dump everything that's left behind in the lost and found box in the....”
“Fuck, Cas, you don't understand," the other boy interrupted, frantically running his fingers through his spiky brown hair, "the class president is the one responsible for checking the lockers, which means Gordon freaking Walker may have found the letter! I've gotta get it back, if he reads it...I'm screwed. I'm completely screwed."
"Dean, calm down," Castiel murmured, grabbing Dean's hands gently to keep him from pulling his hair. "What letter? What are you talking about?"
Before the brunette could even begin to form a response, the crackle of the loudspeakers filled the hallway, signaling an announcement and he quickly pulled his hands away from Cas' warm palms.
"Dearest students of West Lawrence High," Gordon's smug voice cut through the air, "it would appear that our very own Dean Winchester has a confession to make to a certain special someone! But since he's very shy, I'll do him the favor and read it for him: 'Dear Cas, you have meant the world to me ever since that day in third grade and I will never understand what I have done to deserve your loyalty and friendship. Over the past years, however, my feelings for you have grown..."
Dropping his gaze to the floor, Dean tried his hardest to drown out the sickeningly cheery voice reciting all his deepest secrets to the world. There was no need for him to hear the words he had written only for Cas' eyes, he knew every single one of them by heart.
From a few feet away he heard a giggle and chuckle joined it from the other the other end of the corridor. Some students had already filed out of the school's front doors to make their way home but many of them had lingered to make plans for the summer with their friends, and it seemed like they just couldn't hide their amusement about the worst thing that ever happened to Dean.
He could feel them pointing and staring and he could feel his best friend's gaze boring into him as well, but he didn't dare lift his eyes to meet it, too afraid to see pity in the dark-haired boy's features, or worse – disgust.
'This is it,' Dean thought, a quiet sob escaping his lips, 'I'm going to lose one of the most important people in my life,' and to make it worse everyone else was laughing at him. But he didn't have long to wallow in his own misery or pray for the ground to open up and swallow him whole because in that moment Cas dragged him in, one hand at the back of his neck, the other fisted into the soft flannel of his overshirt.
Cas was kissing him, he was kissing him, slotting his lips against Dean's and clumsily running the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip. And as Dean opened his mouth to finally, finally learn what his friend's (boyfriend's?) tongue felt like against his, he decided that kissing Cas was every bit as magical as he had dreamed.